The documentary will be available on DVD and download beginning in April through Virgil Films (“Restrepo,”"Forks Over Knives”) complete with extra features.

Author/philosopher Rand began writing her last and most ambitious novel – “Atlas Shrugged” – in the years immediately following World War II. Her working title for the book was “The Strike.” It was about what would happen if all the productive people in America went on strike, leaving the entitlement recipients and governmental regulators she called “moochers” and “looters” without anyone to create value for them.

The result is chaos and ultimate disaster.

The post-war years and early ’50s are generally thought to be a relatively prosperous and benign period in twentieth century American history. Yet that’s the period through which Rand painstakingly crafted her novel. When it was published in 1957, “Atlas” was widely dismissed for its “preposterous” scenario. “Atlas” was science fiction. In no way, said the critics, did it depict the real America. Not yet, Rand said. In fact, she wrote the novel in the hope she might prevent it from coming true.

Despite the criticism, “Atlas Shrugged” became a bestseller and continued to sell through the decades. Tens of thousands of copies still fly off shelves, both digital and physical, each year. And though readers occasionally noticed similarities between “Atlas”’s plot and the way things were going in America, you didn’t hear the name Ayn Rand or the titles of her novels or subsequent philosophical essays spoken very often. But readers were noticing, and little by little, as the century turned, you began to see and hear Rand and “Atlas Shrugged” referenced in the media and public discourse.

By 2008, in the wake of one disastrous administration and on the threshold of another, people who had read “Atlas” were picking it up again. Events mirrored the novel’s plot.

An ever burgeoning government churned out upwards of 5,000 new federal regulations per year. The financial system was corrupt. Wall Street was rigged, the economy melting down even as the government stooges that had created or facilitated the mess called for wider powers.

Meanwhile, the new president talked about “redistribution of wealth” and Americans having to sacrifice and taxing the rich in a time of need. And – hold on a second – hadn’t all that happened in the book?

What did Rand know and how did she know it?

“Ayn Rand & the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged” is the biography of a book and an idea. It provides a close examination of Rand’s controversial novel and the validity of its dire prediction for America.

“Atlas Shrugged Part 2,” based on Rand’s iconic 1957 novel, begins principal photography in April in Los Angeles, Colorado, and New York. The film’s release window is October 2012, roughly a month before the presidential election.

No word on cast additions or changes yet, but Duncan Scott, an 8-time Emmy winner who worked extensively with Rand in her editing of “We the Living,” has joined the “Atlas” production team.

“Rand has long been the focus of Duncan’s work. He brings invaluable experience to the table as well as an incredible depth of knowledge regarding Atlas. We’re thrilled to have him on the team,” producer John Aglialoro said in a statement.

Today’s announcement, timed for Rand’s birthday, comes with the promise that the filmmakers will try to build upon the first installment.

“We have high aspirations for Part 2. We’ve looked carefully at Part 1 and taken time to analyze and reexamine everything from the script to the casting. John and I are committed to making a great Part 2 and excited about what lies ahead,” producer Harmon Kaslow said in a statement.

Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” follows a future America where the many of the country’s leading innovators have gone missing.

We’ve gone from Dirty Harry to Jason Bourne (or whatever his name ended up being; the camera was too shaky for me to ever tell what was going on). We’ve gone from Humphrey Bogart to George Clooney.  We’ve gone from John Wayne fighting Indians to Na’vi fighting Americans.

But, don’t fret. For there is an answer to our problems, fellow film buffs. I know you’re six feet from that ledge, but let me give you hope…they are called books. They are these contraptions with bindings and pages with words on the inside. Together this all creates a story one hundred times more fulfilling than today’s dim-witted liberal flavor-of-the-month films.

Hollywood has always been a liberal town. They give us anti-Iraq war movie after anti-Iraq war movie despite the fact that they all flop at the box office. But what of the literary world?  They must surely share Hollywood’s contempt for conservatives and enriching stories, right? Wrong. The publishing world seems to get it, for the most part. They like to publish what sells and what seems to sell today are right-leaning stories.

Stephen Hunter, Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, Tom Clancy, Frank Miller, James Ellroy, and Andrew Klavan. These are just a handful of names of today’s top fiction writers. All of them have something in common: they have, admittedly, right leaning politics and philosophies. This does not mean that their books are some kind of weird right-wing propaganda. What it means is that their stories usually make the bad guys who the bad guys really are and their heroes don’t shy away from masculinity or righteous indignation. These writers also have something else in common: they are all New York Times bestselling authors. Try out Stephen Hunter’s new novel Soft Target. It’s a hundred times better and more visually striking than any new action film to hit theaters in the last year. Or try Andrew Klavan’s last adult thriller, The Identity Man. It’s more thought-provoking and more well thought out than any half-baked political thriller cooked up by George Clooney. These writers lead the fiction front in literature today. They put out bestsellers that frequently win acclaim from critics.

As for non fiction…now we are really getting to the heart of the beast. Look at the New York Times bestseller list for non-fiction and you are bound to see a plethora of conservative thought. While Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham are regularly blasted in the mainstream media, they regularly put out bestsellers. Others do too. In fact, most non-fiction political books that hit shelves are written by conservatives. Why this phenomenon and why now? Is it that conservatives have been turned away by Hollywood so they have retreated to the inner workings of books? Or is it because right-leaning artists and right-leaning thinkers need more than a 90-minute film to bring across a message and/or story?

Perhaps films are more representative of a liberal approach to storytelling, while writing is a more conservative approach. Films are a collected effort. They takes hundreds, if not, thousands of people to create, and usually have a vision that is compromised by too many cooks in the kitchen. Books, on the other hand, are a celebration of individualism. It takes one person to sit and put his vision down. Maybe this is the explanation, but maybe not.

But whatever it may be, this much is true: if you hit up your local bookstore or head over to Amazon, you’ll find a world of old school storytelling and right-leaning stories. John Wayne and his films ain’t dead, they just grew up. They exist in an entirely new world: the world of books.

Check out footage from the latest Tea Party rally and you’ll see people holding signs referencing classics like 1984 by George Orwell and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Check out footage of the latest Occupy Wall Street rally and you’ll see people wearing “V for Vendetta” masks. That says it all.

“Atlas Shrugged: Part I,” the long-awaited film adaptation of Rand’s celebrated tome, arrives on Blu-ray and DVD today after its spring theatrical release.

—–

The film follows a driven capitalist (Taylor Schilling) trying to save her family’s railroad company by using an experimental metal. Governmental regulations, and the disappearance of several noteworthy innovators, threaten to derail her ambitions.

“Atlas Shrugged: Part II” will begin production in 2012, but for now Rand fans can savor the original feature along with a quarter of home video extras:

• “Road to Atlas Shrugged” – A look at author Ayn Rand and how her writing still inspires a new generation of politically aware readers. “It sparked the idea that man is a heroic … and success is something I need not feel guilty about,” says writer/producer John Aglialoro, who bought the film rights to the novel back in 1992.
• “I Am John Galt” – The social media outreach effort prior to the movie’s release yielded a series of fan-made videos repeating the book’s iconic quote.
• “The John Galt Theme” Slideshow – A virtual gallery from the film’s set.
• Commentary from Aglialoro, screenwriter Brian Patrick O’Toole and producer Harmon Kaslow. – The brain trust behind the film share anecdotes from the production.

While I definitely respect all these points of view, I have to question why many of us are questioning Hollywood instead of questioning ourselves. And what we should be asking ourselves is why many of us complain so much about Hollywood’s output but at the same time fail to support the burgeoning artists, musicians, writers and filmmakers in our own community?

For full disclosure:  yes, I am a conservative, and yes, I am a filmmaker trying to get my art out to the greater world. For the life of me, I have never understood why we monetarily and spiritually support artists, studios and media companies while simultaneously berating them for what they offer us. If someone delivers crummy pizza that smells weird, tastes worse and gets me sick, would I still call the same pizza place every time? No. So, why do we do the same when making entertainment or artistic purchase choices?

In film, you don’t get to shoot on 35 mm with big-name actors, commissioned scripts, or the best D.P.s using someone else’s money unless you have a track record and have proven you can make money. To become a great artist, you need time to develop and hone your craft.  You need to be able to make a living in your particular medium to justify working in the arts and to gain that 24/7 time needed to create and edit better and better material.  Having a paying audience is the only way to make that happen.  Not all “conservative” films or shows will be great and not all will be good, but all should be supported by the people most predisposed to enjoy the material, fellow conservatives.  Still, it seems to me that the right’s expectations are too high when art comes from one of their own.

It’s like being the guy or gal who struggles to make it as a local artist.  The hometown crowd is much tougher on you, and their expectations of success are so high that the bar they set just to earn a “You know, it’s alright” is almost impossible to surmount. Are “conservative” audiences really saying that until you start winning Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, and Grammys, you haven’t achieved that much? It seems that way for both new artists as well as some of the more established ones.

I paid money to see An American Carol in a theater.  Atlas Shrugged, too.  They weren’t films that met the unbelievably high expectations of their audiences.  So what? They were not bad films.  Hello? They were trying to do a helluva lot with limited budgets and the expectations that came with being the first “conservative” films in their genres.  Almost no film could have met the expectations those two had to deal with. No new artistic movement occurs overnight, and these films were steps in the right direction that deserved our money.

How do you expect to see more artists, musicians, filmmakers, etc., who think like you do if you aren’t willing to support the ones you already have among you?  Can you really expect those who are successful and established to risk everything by deciding to “come out of the closet” politically?  God bless Gary Sinise, Patricia Heaton, Jon Voight, Angie Harmon and the other stars who have come out, gotten involved and led from the front.  They are an inspiration, but fortunately for them, they had established resumés to help them weather the natural blacklisting faced by entertainment-industry conservatives.

If you don’t support conservative artists’ material, especially when they are putting their livelihoods, careers and more on the line, then don’t pine for “better” content, and don’t condemn them for not outnumbering the artists you can’t stand.  At the end of the day, you, the audience, are a vital part of Hollywood too. Your time and money determines what future projects are financed, so keep in mind that we can only make what we want if you signify to our investors that those projects will be profitable.

Obviously, it means everything we’ve ever believed is absolutely wrong.

The free market just doesn’t work. Every conservative really is a secret dog-whistle racist. America is no more exceptional than North Korea. The earth really is barreling towards cataclysmic destruction because of you air conditioner. True equality and justice comes from redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor. Wait–

*brakes screech*

*spit take*

*jaw drops*

*pants fall*¹

Redistribution of wealth? Lucky for Aglialoro and his partner at Atlas Films, Harmon Kaslow, they’re located smack dab in the middle of millionaire country; and Los Angeles’s rich filmmakers all agree that redistribution of wealth is the right path for America! So, here is my plea to some of Tinseltown’s most beloved left-wing filmmakers. We’ve seen the light, and now we need your help.

Aaron Sorkin:  Your screenplay for The Social Network, a deconstruction of a modern-day captain of industry, was a runaway hit. It more than recouped its $40 million production budget with a global take of over $200 million.  Surely you can spare 50% of your Social Network royalties for a struggling production company for whom the free market has failed. Oh, I see; you’d resist because Atlas Shrugged doesn’t deserve this money, right? The writing was stilted and didactic? It skimped on marketing? That, Mr. Sorkin, is what we call blaming the victim. These hard-working people, who put their heart and soul into this film, are like an innocent Alaskan caribou shot and butchered by apathetic moviegoers– witless bullies destroying the potential to finish a historically important film adaptation. Mr. Sorkin, surely you have the moral courage to take a stand against this injustice, to give your hard-earned money to those less fortunate artists, cruelly maimed by the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism.

James Cameron:  What more is there to say about the success of Avatar? Yeah, you may have only surpassed the gross of Titanic by jacking up ticket prices, packaging them with little plastic sunglasses, but by gum, you surpassed Titanic, almost earning $3 billion. Now, at the very least, you can help offset the carbon footprint of your film, its DVD sales (remember, DVDs are wasteful), and Atlas Shrugged’s production.

Now, I know this is a touchy subject, but I think it’s a great opportunity for you. We’re quickly coming up on the five-year anniversary of Al Gore stating we only have 10 years to prevent a “tipping point” in our climate’s destruction. Since then, the only thing Al’s cut back on is his number of wives, and things aren’t looking so great for your own efforts against nothing less than the destruction of worldwide ecosystems. This is a crucial moment, Jim; this is your chance to turn the tide. Do you really need the money from DVD sales of your films? Please, Mr. Cameron, stand in solidarity with endangered species and donate 100% of this year’s royalties to Atlas Productions on the condition that 25% of them will be used for carbon credits. You’ve had a taste of the thanks you can receive from the world’s indigenous populations; why would you hold onto transient wealth and prevent yourself from receiving this thanks from the very fauna and flora of the Earth? Remember, you can’t take it with you, Jim. Not even the submarines.

Adam McKay:  Surely, sir, you see how the example of Atlas Films versus your own Gary Sanchez Productions is a textbook example of income disparity– the same disparity you handily reminded us of in the infographic credit sequence of your blockbuster hit The Other Guys, which cost $100 million to make and grossed $170 million worldwide.  That and your three previous films have all been profitable because you found ways to repackage Will Ferrell’s schtick in wildly different settings and situations, attracting a large, enthusiastic audience and making you a very, very, very, very, very, very, very rich man. You’ve stated in the past that executives in other industries make too much money and should keep less of it for the good of everyone.

So, let’s review some economic facts here (I can’t afford to hire animators for an infographic):  your theatrical films alone have earned a collective $453,190,451 in box office receipts, though their production budgets only add up to an estimated $263,500,000. That’s $189, 690,451 in profit, a profit margin of almost 42% (obviously those figures don’t include marketing costs, but they also don’t factor in DVD sales or money from product placement through multinational corporations). Atlas Shrugs still hasn’t recouped $15,659,145 of its production budget after a month in theaters. That loss could be covered by 8.2% of the profits of your films (and this isn’t counting the profits of Funny or Die or your income as head writer of Saturday Night Live).

Now, obviously, the lion’s share of that money goes to the production companies who fund your theatrical films, so I have no idea how much of this money is actually yours. But I still have no doubt that you could fill the deficit of Atlas; at the very least, you could convince your good friend and collaborator Will Ferrell to donate that much from the $20 million he demands per film, leaving him with $4,340,855 to live on until his next project– a sum that many Americans would kill to earn for a few months of work. If that’s too unreasonable, surely you have enough millionaire friends that 16 of you could donate just under a million dollars for those whom the free market has forsaken?  Or are we gonna have to introduce more strenuous regulations to counteract your greed?

The Rest of Hollywood: Should these men fail to abandon capitalistic avarice and refuse to help out peers in need, this is an open call to make President Barack Obama proud of you and spread the wealth around. Remember, you pledged.

¹ They were actually already down.

Interest in Rand has been escalating over the last couple of years, and of course the main reason is that she nailed it with her 1957 novel, Atlas Shrugged. Rand foresaw, more than fifty years ago, what is happening today in our country — the free market being destroyed, government taking over private industry, bureaucratic bungling and deception, always with disastrous results — and she understood the underlying causes, too.

Sales of her books are setting records.  She is quoted constantly–not only in newspapers, newsmagazines, television and radio talk shows, but also in mass media favorites like The Simpsons, South Park, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The Colbert Report.  And then there is her popularity with so many in the Tea Party and pro-liberty community. Odd bedfellows maybe, but there’s no denying her ability to get people talking!

Her visibility climbed even higher this month with the long awaited release of the film, Atlas Shrugged, Part One.  

So it was time to launch Inside the Mind of Ayn Rand, a project we have been prepping since early 2010.  Slated for release in theaters in early 2012, the 90-minute feature film explores the relevance of Ayn Rand’s views on the fundamental issues facing society today. And while it also weaves in the epic story of her life, it’s not focused on biographical details. Most importantly, this will be the first major film to examine, in some depth, the full range of her ideas—i.e., reason, limited government, self-interest, and free markets—and the impact those ideas have on the state of our world today.

After spending our own money on the initial development stages, it became apparent that the best way to get this movie into theaters quickly, was to reach out to the worldwide base of Rand fans.

While most of our budget will be met through the usual methods–private investment, institutional support, and pre-sales to distributors—we discovered an exciting way to reach-out to the thousands Ayn Rand fans around the world who want to see Rand’s ideas popularized.  For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been running a funding campaign over at an ingenious website called Kickstarter.com.

As the name implies, Kickstarter.com helps get projects–mostly of a creative nature– off to a fast start.  For us, this was the perfect opportunity to harness the grassroots liberty community in a pro-active way.

What we like is that donations, large or small can be made right at the Kickstarter page.  It makes it easy for people to play a role in making the film possible — even with the smallest donation. Most of us don’t have the means to be serious movie investors  However, a lot of small contributions add up quickly, as we have seen with the growing support of our project.

Kickstarter allowed us to offer donor incentives too.  They range from a free DVD of the finished film to an exclusive private screening anywhere in the world, and even to receiving producing credits on the film.

Kickstarter encourages projects like ours to present short “pitch” videos, and we’ve found that to be an important component of our success. Anyone planning to launch a project there should put a lot of thought and creativity into the video they create.  We’ve also found that publicizing the site, mainly through e-mail blasts and calls to key individuals was no small job, but it pays off.  And Kickstarter itself has an enormous community of people who routinely peruse the site, looking for projects to donate to.

This kind of grassroots support ensures that we will keep moving quickly towards production while the other, more time consuming fundraising continues. But perhaps most importantly, it accelerates the pace at which independent projects like ours get to the screen.

I think Inside the Mind of Ayn Rand will be a real eye-opener, not only about her ideas, but also about the fascinating and complex woman behind those ideas.  But we need to get the film out there as fast as possible, and we’re happy to be using Kickstarter to help do that!

Check out our project, which expires on May 10th, see how it works, and consider making a donation too.

The most interesting development, however, is that in their effort to expand television advertising, MSNBC, CNN and CNBC “have all rejected a 15-second ad for ‘editorial’ reasons [with] no further explanation provided.”

“This unforeseen censorship effectively puts the brakes on our follow-up marketing efforts where we were trying to reach millions of people unaware of the movie being in theaters now,” Kaslow wrote. “We are continuing with the theatrical release because we have great word of mouth and awareness for the movie increases daily.”

Just a few minutes ago, the producers were good enough to send along a YouTube of the rejected ad with this note: “Here’s the ad.  It’s very simple and certainly in no way offensive[.]”  

See for yourself:

—–

Not saying there isn’t one, but I would be curious to know what the cable nets “editorial” problem is here.

Most surprising, though, was the revelation that CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC are refusing to broadcast 15-second “Atlas” spots. What’s that about?

“I’m going to get a picture of Roger Ebert and Peter Travers and the rest of them so I can wake up in the morning and be reminded what we’re up against,” Aglialoro wrote in an email. “They’re revitalizing me with their outrageousness.” Aglialoro then went on to state that he had been “misunderstood” when he said that the critical drubbing the film took “influenced him to abandon the second and third films in the Atlas Shrugged franchise.”  He confirmed that he has ”no intention to go on strike.”

That should come as very good news to the many, many people who obviously enjoyed the film and found it to be something special. Personally, I’ve never seen such polarized reviews before. The critics savaged it and yet everyone who sent a revew into us loved it. The most interesting thing I’ve noticed is that no one was on-the-fence about the film. No one said, “Yeah, it was okay.” People either passionately embraced Part 1 or passionately didn’t. You don’t see a lot of movies like that. So, for those of you who loved it…

“Make no mistake, we want to make Part 2 and Part 3 and we’re committed to finding a way to make it work,” Aglialoro wrote.  “There’s a temptation to make the movies expecting to lose money, to say to heck with the critics and invest another $10 million and hope to make some of it back. But to do so would betray Ayn Rand’s principles. This has to be a profitable venture. The challenge is in finding a way to overcome the critics and the rest of the establishment, who are united against us. The most frustrating thing is knowing that there are people who are missing out on an opportunity to enjoy the experience of Atlas Shrugged on the big screen either because of what critics have said or because they just don’t know it’s in theaters because they haven’t heard about it.”

The producers also told me they are “moving ahead with the theatrical release because demand is still high in several markets – [we have the] highest per-theatre gross of movies currently playing in Nashville and Atlanta. We are also continuing with the word of mouth campaign because, as expected, the mainstream media have largely either ignored or attacked it.” 

The most interesting development, however, is that in their effort to expand television advertising, MSNBC, CNN and CNBC “have all rejected a 15-second ad for ‘editorial’ reasons [with] no further explanation provided.” 

“This unforeseen censorship effectively puts the brakes on our follow-up marketing efforts where we were trying to reach millions of people unaware of the movie being in theaters now,” Kaslow wrote. “We are continuing with the theatrical release because we have great word of mouth and awareness for the movie increases daily.” 

You can find “Atlas Shrugged” theatres here and request your local theatre make it available here.

The NY Post article linked above asks the question: “Why didn’t The New York Times, which deploys a small army of critics to handle even the most obscure releases, bother to review this particularly newsworthy movie?” A worthy question. The Post goes on:

The Culture Desk, as its [sic] known over there, hasn’t even run a feature on the movie since 2007 (though a couple of Op Ed columnists mentioned it recently). The Times didn’t respond to my e-mailed query, but a commentor [sic] named Stu Freeman posted an intriguing theory at the movie’s page on the newspaper’s website:

“Has anyone else been wondering why The Times- which never lets a new movie go unreviewed (even when no critics’ screenings have been arranged)- has decided to break precedent with this one? My understanding is that the film’s producers actually did hold a press screening but decided not to issue an invite to this paper. If so, the failure to publish a review here is a matter of pure pique and comes across as a disservice to the paper’s readers. I have no personal connection to the film and nothing good to say on its behalf. My argument is that every film that opens commercially in NYC deserves to be critiqued by its paper of record. The decision not to do so is even more deplorable than that taken by the distributing company to withhold an invitation to its opening for reasons of editorial politics, operating policy or anything else. Who knows? The Times critics might have actually liked the thing…”

Indeed, it is noteworthy that The Times would ignore this particular movie while reviewing scores of others arguably less relevant to today’s current events. The Times’ possibly intentional choice to ignore Atlas Shrugged is yet another example of how news outlets control the national conversation not just by how they cover stories, but by which stories they choose to cover.

Written byAccuracy in Media’s Allie Duzett.